Kibble or hay?

[Rachty]

What do you prefer to use if an animal can eat both?

[Jigain]

No, no, no. You're doing it all wrong.

You're supposed to just type "X or Y?" as the thread title, and as the body text you type either X or Y. Nothing else.

Geez, get with the meta.

[crgzero]

Neither, dandelions the whole way.

[Sugar Show]

mah boi, mah boi, only plebs use kibble or hay. You must treat animals like any other quality member of the colony and feed them with berries.

[Delle(DK)]

I prefer hay.
In general all winter my animals are locked inside a small building where they eat hay.. and when they can go outside I assign them a big area with grass on the map. ( not my fields ).

I dont use kibble for animals if i can avoid it, since I prefer to use the meat to cook better quality food for my people so they become happy. Typical i have alot of patatos and stuff, but not so much meat.
I pretty much only use kibble in early game as emergency rations locked away for my people just in case my cold food storage run out of power to cool, or something bad happen.

[ꌗꉣ꒒ꂦ꓄]

I go kibble, because it keeps my fridges from getting overfilled. :P

Also practically every creature will eat kibble, but only some will eat hay.

Also, kibble's great for prisoners too. And colonists that don't mindlessly follow orders like good little soldiers. :D

[Bozobub]

I'm with the "save that meat for colonists' meals" group. Not only are good meals essential for colonist mood, processing kibble takes extra time/labor.

[Scathe]

Originally posted by Bozobub:

I'm with the "save that meat for colonists' meals" group. Not only are good meals essential for colonist mood, processing kibble takes extra time/labor.

animal meat needs to be saved for colonists meals, I agree, but, it is likely I'll start the game with a skilled cook, and manage to recruit someone with some level of passion for cooking and low skill later. the first cook will then only cook meals, while the second low skill cook does butchering mostly. but this second low skill cook will also have time to butcher insects and make kibble out of insect meat and hay, which is more efficient to feed animals than just hay.

[LYNX Scout]

I only kibble if there's bugs, cause the bugmeat eaten by the colonists makes them pissy (there's all these tubes in it, or whatever it is they say). I also don't bother with enough hayfields, usually, so the animals will go from hay till midwinter-ish the hay runs out and I have a one square stockpile for raw veg, so they get to eat rice, potatoes, whatever the hauler haul out there.

[stevasaur]

I've never had a particularly large collection of animals, but when I'm not feeding them random raw food (because I'm lazy as all get out), I usually just drop a big hay storage zone in the barn.

The carnivores feast on the corpses of my enemies.

[LYNX Scout]

Oh yup, forgot. Haygrass and enemy freezer. Best placed in a position where the pawns won't use it as a short cut. (Seen corpse x 32++)

[The Safe and Sterile Bread-Tan]

Speaking from the experience of the colony i had with 50 tamed rats.

Dead bodies

[martindirt]

Graze. Anywhere but on my fields. I'm save hay for the winter.
When there is not enough grass to feed my herbivores, I'm sow pincushion cactus (mod). The needs only 10% fertility, so I can sow it on sand.

Bug meat for animals? Nah. Cook it in hearty stew (+5 mood buff), so the mood penalty is outbuffed.

+ info: When you play CE + real fog of war (wildlife tab is empty, you have to search for wildlife manually with a drafted pawn) + medieval research cap (no cameras) you won't waste any meat to feed your pets.

[Bozobub]

Nice mod set suggestion to up realism/difficulty, although a bit rough for my tastes; I'm not quite masochistic enough ^^'.

[LYNX Scout]

I don't have anything that's "other food types" but the ones that come with a Fishing mod, so no hearty stew exists in my area of the Rim ;)

[Bozobub]

For me, the main problem is the man-hour (pawn-hour?) costs associated with kibble, combined with the extra administrative work (read: "mouseclicks") involved. It has niche benefit but otherwise... Meh.